Back of the Envelope

Sluggy Freelance — Holiday antics for Sluggy. Zoe decides to stay in town and do her radio program rather than go home to visit her family, which doesn't sit well with said family. They call up her program to complain, and although she manages to get through it, it leaves her pretty depressed and very lonely. Fortunately, Torg shows up with a PSS3 to cheer her up. The PSS3, by the way, is the result of Bun-bun's prank on Santa leaving presents strewn all over the place.

Day by Day — A grab bag this week, with Barack Obama, Kofi Anan, Putin, William Jefferson, and the military's rules of engagement all getting a mention, mostly in conversations between Jan and Damon. They're a cute couple, aren't they? It's interesting they get along so well as they seem to be arguing about politics all the time.

Scary Go Round — Ryan goes to see Tim, who manages, via high voltage, to restore his memories. Now that he's back to himself, he's trying to figure out who's been sabotaging Tim, and Riley seems like the most likely culprit.

Dominic Deegan — Luna's shopping for a new house, while blatant racism in the newspaper has Dominic down, but a visit from Szark helps to cheer him up. And it seems that not all the Knights of Callan are as bad as most of the ones we've seen so far. But before Dominic can get too cheery, we get a vision of Jacob. He's always creepy.

Schlock Mercenary — The nanites at work trying to fix Kevyn have finally recovered his missing memories, so we get to see the rest of what happened along with Kevyn. Hopefully, they'll get the damage repaired before his body gets incinerated by the hostile aliens.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg buys a PlayStayshun 3, hocking his car to do so, but immediately loses interest when he realizes that it doesn't come bundled with any games. So he sells it on ebay, and buys a new car and a SuWii. Gwynn loves the new toy (and delivers a great show to the boys, since Torg wasn't honest on how the motion sensing controller works), but isn't too thrilled that Torg's sporting the Hereticorp logo. A quick offer of pizza calms her and her monkeys, though. Meanwhile, Bun-bun's planning to mess with Santa this year. I can't say that I'm really surprised.

Day by Day — The Iraq Study Group has issued its report. Which suggests negotiating with the Iranians and Syrians for terms of surrender, or something like that. The ludicrous claim that they don't want chaos in Iraq doesn't jive with the reality that they're the ones causing it. Chris gets a lot of mileage with that this week. Still, there's room to mock the AP's inability to produce evidence for their stories.

Scary Go Round — Well, it looks like Rachel has been cooked. I'd feel sorry for her, but she was trying to start the apocolypse. Besides, who ever stays dead in this strip? Shelley's busy trying to help the mer-man figure out what he is, going so far as to request the aid of the assistant to evil scientists, Moon, who's now on the straight and narrow as a research assistant in Oklahoma. Amy's father seems to think he recognizes the other crazy guy as a brilliant professor, but he sure isn't behaving like one.

Dominic Deegan — Stunt's on his way out, and though Bumper offers to go with him, each wants what is best for the other, which means parting ways. Dominic is touched. The earth elemental Rocky, not so much.

Schlock Mercenary — The aliens have rescued Kevyn. At least, that's what he thinks, before they inform him that he had recently escaped captivity to them and they execute him. Dang, amnesia's inconvenient. Fortunately, his blood nannies get to work reviving him again, but they're getting sort of tired of all this work. They want him to take better care of himself.

This is really, really late this week. My apologies, but you probably shouldn't be surprised.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg and Riff stumble upon the House of Cheese, a new pizza place that serves really good pizza and prominently displays the Hereti-Corp logo. It is, of course, a Hereti-Corp business. Furthermore, as Riff's already figured out, it's designed to draw out Oasis. Override B-1 and all the moment she spots that logo.

Day by Day — Sam draws the attention of a calendar photographer with her shooting, so now she's off to a photoshoot for some calendar of women and guns. Jan and Damon accompany her to make sure everything's on the up-and-up, but it looks like Jan's very uncomfortable, possibly more due to the guns than Sam's skimpy clothing.

Scary Go Round — Rachel's domineering personality has run afoul of the Satanic nuns, and they've decided to burn her in effigy--well, more accurately, burn her inside an effigy. Actually, it looks more like a wooden house, but whatever. Tessa tries to save her without getting herself burned alive, but she's not having an easy time of it. Back at the bachelor pad, Shelley's showing Ryan where he used to live, but it's hardly a happy homecoming, as his pet bat has died in his absence.

Dominic Deegan — Just as it looks like Stunt's dead, he manages to reach his feet and cut Urban Eddie's throat. But he's been stabbed fatally, and we get a touching death scene where he tells Bumper how much he cares about him. Then Gregory shows up at the last moment and heals him, making everyone feel very embarassed. It's quite disconcerting to give your deathbed statement and then survive. Despite all this, Stunt's arrested for murder. Even if everyone feels his killing of Urban Eddie was justified, he did a lot of other nasty things, so Pam decides that his punishment is exile--which wouldn't be so bad if Bumper were going with him.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn's nanobots are helping him to set his bones to make their repair work easier. It's a painful, often disgusting process, and way too much of it is shown. But moving along, Schlock and the others are heading farther and farther away, trying to discover where the air ship they spotted came from. Unfortunately, it was just out for a spin around the world, so they've got a long walk ahead of them. The aliens the air ship belonged to, meanwhile, are curious about what started the forest fire they witnessed.